Deep Impressions

Canada’s Caribou (formerly ‘Manitoba’), the brainchild of Dan Smith, has announced details of his next album Our Love, the much anticipated follow-up to 2010’s wonderful Swim album. Swim set out to create “dance music that sounds like it’s made out of water rather than made out of metallic stuff like most dance music does”, and spawned a remix album replete with reworks from heavy-hitters like James Holden, DJ Koze, Junior Boys and Gavin Russom. Smith subsequently unveiled his Daphni alias, releasing the Jiaolong album before dropping a recent collaborative EP with Domino Records’ Owen Pallett. That more or less brings us up to the present, as we wait for the arrival of Smith’s third album as Caribou in early October. Our Love is reportedly Caribou’s most soulful album to date, and features guest spots from the aforementioned Pallett and Canadian starlet Jessy Lanza, who enjoyed a breakout year in 2013. As one would expect, the album traverses an eclectic melting pot of influences, with the press release detailing a mix of “digital pop production, hip hop inspired beats, muted house basslines and a love of shuffling garage”. Best of all, we have a touchstone in the form of album opener ‘Can’t Do Without You’, which Smith has uploaded online. It’s a gem. Bring on the album!

Unheralded techno trier Richie Hawtin – I kid, I kid – has released a new album as Plastikman, EX. The album is Hawtin’s first since 2003’s Closer and was recorded at New York’s iconic art museum, the Guggenheim, in a performance orchestrated by fashionista supremo Raf Simons. Hawtin takes over the narrative from here: “By accepting Raf’s offer to perform at the Dior event at the Guggenheim I knew I’d set myself up to a huge challenge… I locked myself away in a series of intense studio sessions and quickly recorded enough new material for the performance and realised I might also have enough for a complete new album. The music came out of me effortlessly as I was very inspired by the opportunity to play in this beautiful architectural space renowned more for art than music. The location also allowed me to step far away from the dancefloor, giving me a huge amount of freedom to EXplore any sonic ideas that I had.” Hold it right there. Does everyone get the basis for the album title? Good. As one would expect from Richie, there’s plenty of effort and a few gimmicks that have gone into the packaging of the release. However, I’m guessing you’re already sold without having to delve into the intricacies of Hawtin’s portable bass system, the ‘SubPac’.

Veteran UK DJ Pete Herbert returns Down Under this month and will headline Tatler on Friday June 20. Equipped with a record collection spanning left-field Balearic disco, house, Italo and plenty more, Herbert is a regular at world-renowned clubs like Fabric. He’s also a celebrated producer, working with Phil Mison under the moniker Reverso 68, releasing on Eskimo Recordings and remixing the likes of Grace Jones, Royksopp and The Glimmers, while he co-runs his own label Maxi Discs together with Dicky Trisco. Herbert has been involved in various projects, using different aliases to keep punters guessing. However, if you do some digging, you’ll find Herbert’s fingerprints are all over Bakazou, Cuica, Frontera L.S.B. and Challenge, where he works with Tim Paris of It’s A Fine Line notoriety. “The aliases came about more from working with different people for each individual project,” Herbert reflected recently. “For sure, the longer you work at trying to make some music, you pick up certain techniques, or tricks that you like, and they help give your work a certain sound, or signature, quite often by mistake perhaps.”